Short Summary

Wrestling -- and the Soviet Union has once again swept the board in its international free-style championships.

Description

Wrestling -- and the Soviet Union has once again swept the board in its international free-style championships. Although they took first place in every class, the Russians themselves have been the first to admit that their success was not the clear-cut victory it first appeared.

Free-Style wrestlers from Bulgaria, the GDR, Czechoslovakia Romania, Mongolia, Cuba, the USA, the USSR ended this year's tournament in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia with Soviet athletes winning in all the divisions. Partly this success is due to the fact that other countries' teams consisted of younger wrestlers with their stars remaining at home to warm up to the world championship and European championships this spring. Soviet team was representative of all the major contenders in all the weight divisions. Thus the tournament revealed the balance of forces between Soviet top performers.

In the 52kg division the American Jim Heins produced most favourable impression as an aggressive and jet-prop technician. He is confident and effectively uses leg grips. In the tournament he was second, which is a big success for the 22-year-old wrestler (blue tights and beard). He defeated the Cuban Rafael Torre by great edge. Three-times world champ in this division Anatoli Beloglazov (USSR) failed to get a prize.

IN the 57kg division the winner was Sergei Beloglazov (22) twin-brother of Anatoli Beloglazov from Kiev (the Ukraine). Runner up here was Joe Corso who was clearly defeated by the Soviet Aleksei Yartsev but in bouts that followed performed confidently and courageously.

In the 68kg division Dave Schultz (USA) got the silver. He was defeated by Mikhail Karachura (USSR) who got the gold.

It was a stiff contest between Vladimir Parshukov (26, Moscow) second in the USSR) height 190cm, weight 125kg) and Adam Andurski (25, Poland) in the 100 plus category. (Andurski stands 214cm, and weights 135kg). Although he won in this about he came in second on the overall performance in the tournament. Adam Andurski has been on Polish national team for two years now. In the 1977 world and european championships he was 6th and 9th correspondingly. In 1978 the athlete from a small Polish town of Rzeszuba moved up to the 4th and 5th places correspondingly.

Winner in the 100-plus category was Soslan Andiev (he is 26, lives in Ordzhonikidze - capital of the North Ossetian Autonomous republic in the North Caucasus - He holds a master's degree in agricultural science). Soslan Andieve is a pupil of Aleksander Medved who had won in three Olympic Games in free-style wrestling and now is a wrestling coach. He was referring at the tournament. Soslan is a four-times world champion and the gold medallist at the Montreal Games.

As is usual with him Soslan demonstrates an active and open kind of wrestling. His bout against the Bulgarian Peter Ivanov, as most of his other bouts, ended in an early win.

SYNOPSIS: Bulgaria, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Mongolia, Cuba and the United States all sent contestants to the championships which were held in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. But the non-Soviet teams consisted mainly of younger, unseasoned wrestlers, with the stars of the sport remaining in their home countries where they are in training for the European and World championships in a few months time. Although Dave Schultz of the United States, in red, looks as if he has this bout in hand, the Soviet Union's Mikhail Karachura, in the darker outfit, defeated him to take the gold medal in the under-sixty-eight-kilogramme (150 lb) class.

In the hundred-plus category (220-plus pounds), Soslan Andiev gained a second gold fro the Soviets. The twenty-six year-old from the North Caucasus, won a gold medal in the Montreal Olympics and here convincingly defeated Bulgaria's Peter Ivanov -- wearing the red leotard.